Chapter 11 #2
Puttnam, when he arrived, was much more loquacious and soon became something of a local curiosity, for instead of the traditional peg, he had replaced his missing foot with a carved wooden one with an ingenious hinge and could be heard stumping down the street with alternative footsteps of hobnails and teak.
He tutted over the garden and the hen run, doubted they would ever produce much, prophesied cabbage root fly, black spot, yellow jackets, ravenous pigeons, and moles, then within three days had dug it all over and was promising that by summer they would never have to buy a vegetable again.
The days were busy, but Elizabeth found the nights uncomfortably long and quiet. Many nights found her lying awake in her enormous bed, wondering how she came to be there, a married woman without a husband, when only weeks before she had been single and afraid.
She could not help worrying until a letter came from Portsmouth.
Her father, although tired, had arrived safe and sound.
Since the wind was against them, they were putting up at a quiet hotel used by naval wives and families visiting the port.
“I have come to believe that every travelling party should contain a naval officer,” he wrote.
“Difficulties are sorted, landlords quelled, and post boys cowed. I do not think I ever have known a less harassing journey.” Her husband was apparently busy arranging for the voyage, for there was but a brief note from him, assuring them of the whole party’s health and wellbeing.
A note at the bottom added that he was wearing her comforter beneath his coat.
As the house gradually settled into its daily routine, callers began to appear.
Elizabeth’s mother and sisters came over from Longbourn, Mrs Bennet full of complaints about the absence of Mr Bennet and Lydia and especially about her brother Gardiner’s tyranny with the housekeeping money.
Elizabeth did her best to represent the need for economy without revealing she knew the funds were really under Jane’s control.
As her mother and younger sisters ranged about the house exclaiming and comparing, Elizabeth and Jane managed a few minutes of mutual condolence on the difficulties of running a house alone.
The day after her family visited, Lieutenant Grace and his wife came to call.
While they all drank tea in the parlour, she asked him where he had met her husband, and she was rewarded by a stream of reminiscence.
“We were shipmates about the old Lincoln,” he said.
“I was second, and he was a master’s mate.
He could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen, but I was right glad to have him aboard.
She were a nasty old ship, the Lincoln. When she wasn’t hogging, she was sagging and crank nor you wouldn’t believe! ”
“Lemuel,” said his wife reprovingly, and he looked up guiltily.
“Am I talking too much? Always did talk too much.” Elizabeth hurried to assure him that she very much wanted to hear, and he continued.
“Well, she was a bad-tempered sort of ship—needed a lot of nursing or she’d turn on you.
The captain was drinking himself to death, and the premier was a bl…
a fool. Your husband and I kept that old tub afloat on the Toulon blockade until she was dismasted in a storm.
We had far too many landsmen aboard and not near enough right seamen, but we managed to get her back to port.
” He laughed a little bitterly. “The surveyor took one good look and condemned her out of hand. I spent the next four years on the beach on half pay. You don’t get fat on four guineas a month and find yourself, let me tell you.
Any road, for all he were nobbut a lad, your husband were a grand help.
I’d never have done it without him.” He took a big gulp of his tea, and the next few minutes were spent with his wife patting him on the back and chiding him for drinking it too hot.
When they finally settled back in their chairs, Georgiana, who had been listening with shining eyes, asked the lieutenant how old he had been when he went to sea.
“Oh, I were twelve and wild to go to sea, like my cousin Frank. There were six of us at home and my mother at her wits’ end to know what to do with us all.”
“My brother was only nine, and that seems terribly young.”
“It is, miss,” he replied. “But your brother was lucky with his captain. He was on the Illustrious, a second rate.” Seeing her puzzlement, he added, “A powerful big ship. There’d be over a score of young gentlemen aboard, and Captain Hanning-Ward was always very particular about the way they was taught.
Shipped his own cousin as schoolmaster and made sure they didn’t just learn navigation like usual.
Always said he expected his young gentlemen to learn to write a decent letter or report and know what was going on in the world.
That’s why they call him ‘Professor’—’cause there are a lot of captains who leave the mids to bring themselves up, and he wasn’t having any of that. ”
This was at least a little consolation, but that night as she lay in bed, Elizabeth could not help but imagine her husband as a very small boy, surrounded by other larger boys, sitting at a long table, and practising the use of logarithms under the watchful eye of the captain’s cousin.